The center-right European People’s Party won’t rule out voting with the far right to deliver its policy agenda, even as Social Democrats and Liberals increase calls for an ironclad centrist coalition deal, according to Finnish EPP delegation chief Mika Aaltola. Actually, I’m saying the opposite. We have gotten our content through, and that’s usually rewarded,” Aaltola said at POLITICO’s Brussels Playbook Live event.
He added he is against putting up a firewall to keep out far-right forces “because it leads into badly behaving kids on the other side of the fence.” “We should go beyond that. On some issues, I think that they [the far right] are relatively sane. On some other issues, there’s insanity,” he added, while insisting a majority of votes in Parliament will involve the mainstream parties.
Since the 2024 EU election, the EPP has repeatedly passed legislation with support from right-wing and far-right groups, particularly on migration and green policy — topics where the centrist groups have the widest gaps between them — sidelining its traditional centrist and center-left partners. Liberals and Social Democrats are now pushing for binding, coalition-style commitments among the three centrist forces to prevent the EPP from turning to the far right. He argued that passing positions with the far right weakens Parliament’s hand in negotiations with EU governments over legislation.
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